gas - 254 questions
natural-gas - 95 questions
propane - 59 question
Is there enough variance for this tag? Should we retag to the specific natural gas or propane tags?
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3 Answers
I think gas makes sense for many questioners/searchers. They often know they are dealing with gas, but may not know which type.
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Yeah, I've tried to retag and most don't have enough to go on. The only ones I've been able to retag are those involving [gasoline]. Probably need better usage guidance Jul 25, 2017 at 12:12
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The asker may not know which type, but surely we would know (or deduce it), wouldn't we? Looking at the recent questions tagged with 'gas', I see water heaters, ovens, ranges, dryers, and heating systems - those are all natural gas. Grills are propane, unless a NG conversion was done. Or is that demarcation not as well-defined as I think it is? Is propane used for furnaces or water heaters?– mmathisJul 25, 2017 at 20:25
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1I just submitted a tag wiki edit to urge the asker to use the NG or propane tags instead, if known– mmathisJul 25, 2017 at 20:35
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1@mmathis The problem is that Natural Gas and Propane overlap. You can (generally speaking) convert between one or the other just by replacing the injector nozzle. So a question about a gas stove is unclear for retag because only the user knows which type of gas it uses (since they pay for it) Jul 26, 2017 at 14:01
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@mmathis In rural (and some suburban) areas in the northeast U.S. you will find large propane tanks on the side of the house. These are usually for cooking and drying clothes and were put in at a time when electricity cost a lot more than propane (and where NG wasn't plumbed in). In NY state this is common although the furnace typically burns heating oil (diesel) for hot water and radiant heat.– StanwoodMar 20, 2018 at 4:41
I think you could try to retag some if its absolutely clear what they mean, but I would wager that most of them are not specific enough.
Adding a more specific tag in to help future searchers is good, but I agree that the generic [gas] tag is required.
I would point out that in some countries "gas" is the only term people would use to describe what others would call natural gas and or propane because gas is not a shorthand for gasoline. Some people would never tag propane or natural gas as its not a term they would ever be familiar with.
